Explorer of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
2,038 reviews

Great first cruising experience

Review for Canada & New England Cruise on Explorer of the Seas
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LoveDoctors
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Oct 2009

Background and Transportation This cruise was a gift to us, along with some onboard credit. This was our first cruise. We did get to choose which cruise we wanted, and we picked this one because we really like Portland, and so we could drive to the port instead of flying. Parking at the port would have been about $200, so we parked at a friend's to the north and took the Hudson-Bergen light rail to Bayonne, which was very easy and cheap. There is a shuttle for $3pp from 34th street station to the port.Check-in Check-in was a breeze. The luggage handler was the only person to mention tipping on our whole vacation. There were long lines, but they moved quickly and we were processed quickly.

Stateroom We had an interior stateroom on deck 6. It's tight if you're used to hotel rooms, but it was plenty of space for our needs. We didn't get as much motion as the higher decks, and we could sleep late because no sunlight could get in. It was also very quiet. We hardly heard anything from outside the room. The bed was actually two beds pushed together with one big sheet set, which was nice because we couldn't disturb each other getting in or out in the night. The shower was also big enough, though smaller than most home showers, and we're not small people. The shower head detaches, and the water was hot with good pressure. My only stateroom complaint is that a bad smell constantly came out of the toilet, but keeping the lid down helped. Our stateroom attendant, Susan, was excellent! She helped us with whatever we needed, and was always very friendly and cheerful. Our interactive television was not fully functional. Pay per view movies were broken, and the account balance screen seemed to give us conflicting numbers one day.

Other Passengers Lots of old people. I felt like I was in a zombie movie whenever I tried to cross the promenade, surrounded by a shambling horde. The cruise director said there were 200 children on board, but we only saw maybe 20 over the whole trip. Even though there were 3200 passengers, there were rarely lines for anything. The only crowded times were the shows for early-dinner people and the one time in the Windjammer when the outdoor bar-b-cue was canceled. We hoped to find people our age to mingle with, but that was very difficult. Fortunately, nearly everyone was nice. We sat with many different older couples (My-Time Dining), and they tended to be friendly, but the conversations were usually about their grown kids and how this cruise compared to other cruises. We did eventually find a very fun older couple.

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